It always amuses me to learn of someone of
prominence who can place the name “Chicago, Ill.” on a form as their place of
birth, even though their career would never give us any indication they had any
connection with the Second City.
There’s Walt Disney (whose animated creations
continue to generate royalties even though he is long gone from this realm of
existence) and Raquel Welch (compared to her, girls such as Jessica Simpson and
Katy Perry are just a couple of foolish tarts), to name a couple.
AND NOW WE can add Robin Williams to the list.
The 63-year-old comedian and actor allegedly was
coping with depression, and there are those who suspect his ills may have
caused him this week to take an action that cost him his life. Autopsies will
soon give us the gory details – for those of us who care.
But I’m not sure it matters much about the man born
in 1951 at then-Presbyterian/St. Luke’s Hospital and raised until he was 8 in
suburban Lake Bluff and Lake Forest.
His life’s work is going to live on so long as
copies of his films don’t deteriorate into dust, and so long as the ME-TV
thinks it is worthy for them to include “Mork and Mindy” among the ranks of
long-cancelled programs they continue to air.
CONSIDERING THAT WE can still watch “Bosom Buddies”
(Tom Hanks in drag) and “Welcome Back, Kotter” (which really did deteriorate
when John Travolta left the show for bigger and better things), it ought to be
a safe bet that they can find a place for early Robin Williams whose absurd
behavior was just supposedly the way a being from space behaved when surrounded
by mere Earthlings.
I’m old enough to remember when that was a
prime-time program, and when we got our introduction to Williams as a guy who
could make us laugh with the ramblings off the top of his head. So much of that
show and Williams’ bits were unscripted.
But unlike people such as Ron Palillo, whose own
obituaries a couple of years ago highlighted a career that went nowhere once
his “Kotter” role as “Arnold Horshack” came to an end, Williams went on to
bigger things in film.
He even got an Academy Award “best supporting actor”
for his role in “Good Will Hunting,” where he served as a street-smart
counselor of sorts to actor Matt Damon’s namesake lead character.
ALTHOUGH I’M INCLINED to remember him most for that
role he had as a private school teacher in “Dead Poets’ Society.” Even if, in
the end, “the captain” was forced to resign his job for having placed all kinds
of deep thoughts into the heads of his students.
Even his moment as a gay Miami Beach nightclub owner
in “Birdcage” sticks in my mind (largely because I saw it on late-night
television recently, but also because it is darned near impossible to forget
the site of actor Gene Hackman in a hideous drag queen disguise).
Williams’ Chicago connections may have come to an
end when the family moved while he was still a child – first to Michigan, then
to San Francisco where he graduated high school and began the path that led to
him being a memorable professional entertainer.
But you just know there are those among us who are
going to want to claim him for one of our own – as though somehow something was
inseminated into his essence as a child that made him so funny as an adult.
FOR THOSE OF us trying to make sense out of the loss
of Williams, perhaps we can think to ourselves that “Mork” has merely gone back
to “Ork.”
As we read this, he’s giving a detailed account of
his decades of life on Earth with Mindy – while also offending his boss, Orson,
with a series of one-liners about his girth.
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